


a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart

by casualbird



Series: dad! heaven! now! [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: BACK ON MY BULLSHIT, Blow Jobs, Character Development, Explicit Consent, Fluff and Smut, M/M, No Spoilers, Pet Names, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Repression, Slow Dancing, who let hanneman be such a whimsical old queen, who let these old men love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:22:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25246816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Hanneman just cocks his head a little, keeps up that precious sunshower smile. "Enlighten me, dear, do you mean — "Gilbert's fingers curl, catching up the eiderdown. "I only wish to … to take care of you. Tonight."Ever,he thinks.In all things.After the war, Gilbert chooses a new banner to march under.
Relationships: Hanneman von Essar/Gilbert Pronislav
Series: dad! heaven! now! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674718
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart

**Author's Note:**

> just to make it abundantly clear, this takes place like a year and a half post-canon. also, an enormous thank-you to shrike for the beta! what a hero.

He doesn't mind not dancing, truly. It's never been … a forte of his, and besides, someone ought to be watching the students.

He doesn't mind his fellow chaperones, either — not Manuela going drink for drink with Catherine, nor Alois whirling delighted students 'round the parquet floor. They deserve the respite this ball brings as much as any of the students, for all they do. Gilbert is content to stand lance-straight at the wall, to guard the merriment, make quite sure that nobody spikes the punch bowl.

Content, though perhaps a touch guiltily, to watch Hanneman, who is in the very flower of his element. It's almost the way he looks when he's studying — there's a verve to him, a sense of place whether hunched over diagrams or flourishing with one hand, the other delicate around a champagne-flute stem. He may have cast aside his title, but his birthright — a quick charm, a genteel laugh — is all his own.

Gilbert tries, with limited returns, not to imagine what his lover must have looked like as a young man, rakish beneath the crystal-dripping chandeliers of Adrestia's ballrooms. Dashing, he suspects, radiant, the kind of person who'd have unnerved new-knighted Gilbert to his bones.

Not altogether different from how he is today, Gilbert supposes — then twists that line of thought right off, resolved to mind the students.

The last ballad's played out soon enough, and Gilbert is pleased to lay the evening to rest without much incident. He stays back with the staff, helps to bundle up the tablecloths, give the hired bards directions to their rooms. Hanneman's farewells always run long — a quarter-hour at least, tonight, to wave dear new colleague Lysithea off to bed. Gilbert busies himself until he feels the familiar whisper of fingertips down from his shoulder, an unobtrusive little gesture that doesn't startle him nearly so much as it used to.

"Did you have a pleasant evening?" asks Hanneman, as brisk as the winter-night air. They fall in step, walking their inexorable path toward Hanneman's quarters — Gilbert had confessed that he wasn't much for parties, so he'd been promised tea and quiet afterward. A banked fire, the cozy quilted bed jacket Hanneman had given him for his last birthday, the clipped affection of his dear cat Cassiopeia.

But. The evening. "Yes," he says, simple and flat and with a mind toward concealing exactly _why._ "The students more or less minded themselves, and I was pleased to see the … the merry-making."

Hanneman's answering smile is delighted, and his feet drift across the empty cobbled path, twining their arms, leaning slender weight against Gilbert's shoulder. "For my part," he confides, crisp, "I had just the most _wonderful_ time. Certainly, I'd have liked to spend more of tonight with you … but I'd hate for you to inconvenience yourself for my sake. And besides," he continues, laying a tiny, secret peck on the sleeve of Gilbert's cloak, "the night is young enough, though we may not be. I'd have a mind to take you to the Goddess Tower, my love, if I wasn't certain we'd be interrupting _someone."_

He hums, fussing with Gilbert's collar in finicky bliss.

"I suppose it might be fun, telling them off … though I'd rather get you home, dear, and have some tea."

Gilbert's lips purse — he isn't certain how to say _yes, I find that agreeable,_ or _I have been awaiting this,_ or _I'd like nothing more._ So he nods, and even though the music's long stopped playing, feels as if he's a little off the beat. Hanneman doesn't mind, though — just laces their gloved fingers, sighs as if the world hasn't a hair out of place, as if he's spent hours arranging it just so.

* * *

It's as strange as it always is, crossing Hanneman's warm threshold. Well — perhaps not _always._

Or rather, it always has been, but like the concoctions that simmer in alembics on Hanneman's desk, shimmering colors that shift by the minute … It's changed, over time.

Hanneman's home is not a place he enters uninvited, though the invitations come to him as easily as Hanneman breathes. Hanneman's home is not his home, though there's a peg for his cloak, a drawer in the chifforobe for spare undershirts, the salve he uses on old wounds.

Somewhere, at the very back of him, it still feels like — like a first glass of watered wine. Forbidden, no matter who says he's allowed it.

Even if it's Hanneman, over and over again, murmuring as he does now, reaching to take Gilbert's cloak — "make yourself at home."

He sits on the sofa, fingers playing absent at the scrollwork on the frame, eyes fixed on Cassiopeia's sleep-slow breathing. Even she welcomes him, now. There was a time when his stiff, shoehorned presence would send her under the davenport, glaring. Gilbert never blamed her for a moment.

For now, though, she sleeps on, and Gilbert smiles at the white ticking around her nose, at the gentle, familiar clatter of Hanneman's tea service.

"Lavender, darling?"

He nods, before realizing, abrupt, that Hanneman isn't looking. "Er — yes. Please."

"Excellent taste," says Hanneman, as if he didn't pick it out himself.

It's only another moment before the pot's steeping away on the low table, the sugar bowl lidded and the cups upturned so Cassiopeia won't go getting her whiskers in them. Gilbert shifts, a little, making space, but Hanneman just smiles, shakes his head.

Extends a hand, gallant as a prince, and asks, "might I prevail upon you for a dance?"

If Gilbert cannot allow himself to feel precisely at home in Hanneman's space, well — at least his lower lip is in the right place, nipped between teeth.

"I was … never much a dancer." And no mistake — even the half-frozen waltzes of high Faerghus eluded him, and with the way he'd seen Hanneman _move_ that evening … well, it was far beyond his ken.

"I am in no way saying that you must, dear Gilbert," he says, his voice slipping into that slow soothe of his, a gentle undertow. "Nor that I am asking for some great complex thing — you saw dear Flayn having her way with me, my knees could mutiny at any second! Just that I thought … that it'd be a unique privilege, dancing with you."

Not for the first time, Gilbert wonders where Hanneman gets it all, how he puts all those elegant turns to his phrasing.

There's really nothing for it, though, but to get to his feet, to bow so slightly it's almost a joke, to lay his quivering palm in Hanneman's.

He allows himself to be arranged, his one hand placed on Hanneman's shoulder, the other gripped light between clever fingers. Hanneman situates them closer, until they're nearly chest-to-chest, until Gilbert could swear the last sliver of distance between them is _ringing._

Hanneman breaks the tension, though, like he would the top of a creme brûlée, laying a peck on the break in Gilbert's nose with great relish.

 _"Enchanté,"_ he says, with the most coquettish smirk.

Gilbert's lungs suddenly feel rather too small for all the air he needs to keep standing, to follow the slow, didactic slip of Hanneman's soles across the rug. All is well, though — Hanneman has him, and he hasn't stepped on any toes just yet.

Until the second turn, when he does, and goes quite aghast even though he slips off before his love can so much as hiss.

"I-I do apologize," he mumbles, and feels Hanneman's forgiveness before he even speaks it, in the slight squeeze of the hand at his waist.

He shakes his head, then, prim and sweet, still smiling. "Not to worry, not to worry." His head cocks, eyes crimping shut with pleasure. "Dancing is an art, there are no mistakes."

Gilbert … has never thought of it this way. He laughs, a bit despite himself, and feels curiously warm.

"Art …?"

"Yes!" insists Hanneman, and marshals them back into step — though he gives up on the idea right quick, planting the fine toes of his shoes between Gilbert's, swaying soft. "And if I may, so are you. Dreadfully handsome, like a statue."

There is a thing gripping Gilbert at the reins, drilling him to dip his head, to argue or apologize or _— something._ Make Hanneman quite aware of his mistake.

Up behind it, though, comes another thing, in the coalescent form of all the lectures Hanneman has ever given him, harping on righteous and certain about Gilbert's supposed _desirable qualities_ as though they were precepts as clear as the tide. _Gentility, grace, generosity of spirit._

So he just. Smiles. And squints his eyes. And lets Hanneman kiss him.

He's always so chivalrous about it, as if he was the vaunted knight Gilbert once strived to be. Always gives him time to balk, to mumble misshapen excuses, to jerk away.

Gilbert supposes that gives him credence — that, and the fact that Hanneman never says _anything_ he isn't prepared to swear on the Goddess' head.

"You're beautiful," murmurs Hanneman, as if it is something he has proven to the world, a scientific principle that will bear his name in textbooks, on blackboards in perpetuity. Gilbert feels himself start to roil and shift; like the slow shudder of half-boiled water.

He doesn't say anything — just lays his hand at the center of Hanneman's back, slowly strums sharp vertebrae.

"So warm," he continues, listing further into him — Gilbert shivers to feel the brush of eyelashes at his neck. "And you stand so steadfast — we may have our peace, darling, but there's still nowhere I feel safer than with you."

Gilbert's fingers twitch, bunching the back of Hanneman's coat. He releases as soon as he wrests control of his hands, smoothes over the wrinkles. There are things he could say, things that clamor in the cage of his throat, his teeth, but there's no divining where to start.

Hanneman only hums, shifts weight back and forth like the slow rock of a ship in calm waters.

"Ah — "

"Yes?"

"Hanneman …" A sigh. Gilbert pitches — he could fall back, could run for the hills, spare this love of his the disappointment. It'll come, he knows as sure as — as death, or the next sunrise.

As sure as he's a complete, utter, piteous fool.

"I — I want to … do right by you. To care for you," he says, and his voice catches all over, a knit scarf snagging on spindly winter branches. He swallows. "I can't say … that I'll be equal to the task, but I _— love — "_

Gilbert chokes, spluttering out the last word unsure if it's a verb or a noun. Hanneman holds him, tethering him down at the spots where his fingertips, his birdboned shoulders press against him.

He doesn't look up, but Gilbert can feel him smiling anyway, where the apple of Hanneman's cheek meets his bare throat.

"Take your time, sweetling."

Gilbert does, nodding, wrestling down his trepidation.

"There is no cause I would rather swear to than to be your sword and shield."

It sounds … tawdry, out of place. The kind of line one might hear in a minstrel's lai, that a white knight might say to his princess. Not wrong, never wrong, but … oh, if he had a penny for every time he wished he could speak as sprightly, as clear as Hanneman, he'd — he'd take him away someplace peaceful, or buy a set of white-gold wedding bands.

The incongruity of it sinks spiny down his throat, settling hot and shivering at the pit of him — but Hanneman sighs like he's sound asleep, listing even closer to him.

"And they say Faerghan men aren't romantic." He looks up, then, meets Gilbert's eye with a grin. "You say _you_ aren't romantic, darling, but do you hear yourself? You," he asserts, quite matter-of-fact, "are one of the most charming men I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I shan't hear anything to the contrary."

If he is as — enchanting, as Hanneman seems to think — Gilbert really ought to say something to that. Oughtn't he? There should be … something to tie it off.

The well is dry, though, save a few stammers, but Hanneman doesn't pay any mind. Just stands, with all his weight on Gilbert's chest, as if he would rather be nowhere else, as if this is something that Gilbert deserves of him.

He doesn't. He thinks, in his worst moments, fingers plucking at his bedclothes, that he never will. That there will come a day when the scales fall away from Hanneman's eyes, though the only times Hanneman has ever been short with Gilbert were in assuring him that such a thing would be impossible. Preposterous, even _— poppycock —_ Gilbert recollected, was a word he'd used.

Whatever the answer is, if Hanneman is a banner, Gilbert marches under it.

A deep breath — centering. The sentiments are overwrought, yes, but no less true, and too much time in their company can be a little dizzying.

"Ought I … pour the tea?" His voice is a gentle rasp, a half-smoothed riverstone. 

Hanneman meets his eye, and though his smile is sprightly, his gaze is half-lidded, soft.

"I confess, I'd quite forgotten about the tea. Forgive me," he sighs, mock-wistful and thoroughly unrepentant, "but I seem to have become occupied with the thought of a certain gallant gentleman escorting me to bed."

_Oh._

It goes through Gilbert like a static shock, stiffening his spine. He feels his face color, his lips part — a year ago, that might have all been apprehension.

There's still a half-measure of it, sure, and there likely always will be. But it's not — nothing of it was so petrifying as he'd thought. And lying with Hanneman, making love to him, _giving himself over …_ has begun to seem just as noble a purpose as any of the others he'd followed in life.

His hands quiver as he shuffles to the side table, takes the little silk sachet out of the teapot. Arranges it neatly on a saucer, wiping away what he drips on the mahogany.

When he looks up, Hanneman is staring at him as if he'd darted off to hang the moon, just as simply.

"I — so it won't be too strong. When we … ah, afterwards."

The corners of Hanneman's eyes crinkle, and Gilbert is attacked by the impulse to kiss the soft skin there, that one tiny detail that could launch a thousand ships.

So he does, haltingly, gently, breath shaking in his throat. His arms insinuate around Hanneman's back, down toward his sharp hip, and when Hanneman gives him a darling little nod, Gilbert lifts him clear off the floorboards, gathering him up against his chest.

He's heard it called a bridal carry, and his mind rattles with it when Hanneman's cheek falls against his clavicle, when he turns to edge him sidewise through the bedroom door.

Inconceivable as it may, it's heady, the thought of being Hanneman's bride.

But. He grits his teeth, breathes it out, focuses on the way Hanneman's coat drapes across the bedclothes, the shift in his waist as he makes himself comfortable.

He has time. At the moment, however, he is for Hanneman in a more immediate capacity.

His love leans up on his elbow, calls him _darling,_ smooths slim fingers over the flyaways in his hair. Laughs, a little, and it strikes Gilbert that he's _been_ laughing, ever since Gilbert had taken him up — _swept me wholly off my feet!_ as Hanneman might say

"I — love you," he stammers, leaning just the slightest bit into Hanneman's palm as it skates across his cheek.

"I know," affirms Hanneman lowly, and Gilbert has learned by now that this is no flat neutrality — from a man who'll publish his love in any journal that'll have it, it's simply to say _yes,_ and _you tell me enough,_ and _I trust in it._

A shiver comes over him, almost belatedly, and Gilbert's cheeks and palms, all of him is flaring. He turns, bends, makes for the laces of Hanneman's elegant patent-leather shoes.

Hanneman cheers him on, a delighted _aren't you clever?_ before Gilbert can even find the words to ask permission.

If his fingers fumble the laces, if they tremble at the sole of Hanneman's foot when he draws them over the fine fabric of his socks, soothing the consequence of an entire night of dancing — Hanneman doesn't make any note of it.

Instead, he coos at him, reaches to lay the palm of his free hand in the crook of Gilbert's elbow. "Whatever have I done, sweetness," he murmurs, and at the pause his eyeteeth tug his lower lip for a glorious split-second, "to deserve the way you treat me?"

Gilbert understands, by now, that he's not obliged to go rummaging for an answer. So he just smiles, soft and almost easy, and circles the pad of his thumb at Hanneman's arch. Ignores the creak of his rheumatism — it's more than a fair price for the little sigh it earns him.

Hanneman lets Gilbert finish, hums as he lays a dry, hesitant kiss on the little slip of shin under the hem of slim-cut trousers. Hanneman hums, then, and pets him, burnished fingernails trailing across his temple, into the tight draw of his hair.

"Dearheart," he murmurs, and Gilbert's eyes flick up, expecting the end of the sentence with the reverence he would an _amen._

There isn't one, though — Hanneman only strokes his jaw, careful. Skirts the place where he'd nicked himself shaving, beckons him up until they're a hand's breadth apart, until Gilbert can feel him breathing, can practically count his long hoarfrost eyelashes.

It'd be more than a worthy use of an evening, Gilbert thinks.

Hanneman, however, has grander designs — he kisses him, once on each cheekbone, on the scar that interrupts his brow, at the center of his forehead like he's testing for a fever.

He finds one. Gilbert shivers, shifts his weight awkward on the mattress.

Makes a stuttering false start. Hanneman only blinks, long and slow and utterly contented.

So. Gilbert takes his teeth from the inside of his cheek, tilts his head precisely to the angle he's been taught. Kisses Hanneman's thin lips, and lingers there.

He never does get over how warm he is, how soft — is still trembling with it when Hanneman pulls back, lilts _darling, Gilbert,_ so close their lips still touch.

"Y-yes dear?"

Gilbert is too close to properly see the smile that washes over Hanneman's face, but he knows it well enough: tender, safe, the way one's fingertips feel when one comes in out of some Faerghus gale, when they're laid at long last on warm hearthstones.

"You look terribly handsome in that jacket," says Hanneman, "I'll admit to stealing glances of you all night — " Gilbert is quite certain that there's more to the remark — it's only that Hanneman is again quite occupied with kissing him.

"Still," he continues after a moment, with the timbre, the surety of someone who hadn't paused at all, "wouldn't you like to take it off?"

Like the world's greatest fool, Gilbert stammers something agreeable about the warmth in the room — but at the least he's got his wits about him enough to fumble it off, hang it neat over the bedpost.

He stops, then, because he's decided that his own undressing isn't the point. It'd been decided for him, really, by his own capricious body, but. Even so. It was, for tonight, immaterial.

(There was a time when it wouldn't have been. Gilbert thinks he prefers the way it's become since.)

What wasn't immaterial was Hanneman — the little waltz he hummed as he set about disrobing, the certain darting of his fingers as he unfastened his ascot, his cufflinks, the smooth tortoiseshell buttons of his tailcoat.

He was in his shirtsleeves in a trice, and Gilbert had become — dumbstruck, _enamored_ with the prospect of reaching in, fingertips brushing against sharp collarbones as he unbuttons his blouse, the way it would feel to trace the contours of Hanneman's arms as he'd slide it gently from his shoulders.

So much so that he'd missed the opportunity — the article lay folded on the nightstand by the time he could so much as think of moving his hands, but. It was alright.

Hanneman tapped him gentle on the side of the neck, and he flushed to realize he'd been staring.

"You really are a dear thing, aren't you?"

"I — er — I try to be," says Gilbert, and wonder of wonders — he's very nearly made a joke.

He pulls him in, then, until Gilbert's shirt brushes Hanneman's bare breast, until he can feel champagne-laced breath against his jaw.

"Tell me what you'd like, Gilbert, I am absolutely yours."

It makes him shake, makes his throat and eyelids clench. Hanneman waits, placid and sweet and unhurried, laying one wide palm over his darling's shoulder.

"Don't think too hard about it, dear, I'll give you anything you'd like. No judgment," he adds, with a soft, familiar cadence. It's something he says often, when they're like this, and it soothes Gilbert the same as a heavy quilt, a hand held gently.

Words don't muster easily to him, but he finds them with a little time. A few glimpses, just to make quite certain Hanneman's not growing bored.

Intellectually, Gilbert knows he never would.

"I — ah, I think I should like to … t-to turn the question on you," he mumbles, words rushing out slipshod like grain from a torn sack. He huffs a breath to steady himself, as deep as he can manage.

Hanneman just cocks his head a little, keeps up that precious sunshower smile. "Enlighten me, dear, do you mean — "

Gilbert's fingers curl, catching up the eiderdown. "I only wish to … to take care of you. Tonight."

 _Ever,_ he thinks. _In all things._

That hand slips up over the yoke of his shoulder, comes to cradle his jaw. The pad of Hanneman's thumb strokes little circles over the thin skin beneath Gilbert's ear, and he can't keep back another shiver, another sigh.

"How would you have me?"

"H-however you'd like."

A little shake of the head — they're so close that the tips of their noses brush past one another, and Hanneman laughs like a bell.

"I daresay we're at an impasse, then," he says, hushed and gentle, "since I'd only like what pleases _you,_ what _you_ feel most secure in doing."

Gilbert grits his teeth — and Hanneman must feel it, since his fingertips shifts down, starts to massage the tension from his jaw.

It's a bit of a travail, then, to keep to the matter at hand, because all Gilbert can think about is how dearly he wishes he could protect, could cherish this man for ever.

He blinks out of it, sighs. "Ah — do you remember … what you taught me? It must have been after Saint Indech's Day, with the — "

Small mercies, Hanneman doesn't make him go on. Quite the opposite, in fact — he halts the spinning of Gilbert's wheels with a kiss, dips back to murmur "I know. You liked that, didn't you, lovely?"

Heat slams him like a breaking wave — heady, a destabilizing thing.

Gilbert can only nod to confess that he did, that he does, that scarcely a day passes when he isn't put in mind of the way it felt to _kneel_ that way, with Hanneman's fingers in his hair, soft praises in his ear.

"Excellent," breathes Hanneman, and even though his voice is hushed, he speaks with the exact same vigor, the same delight his tone takes when he's found the answer to some consuming mystery.

Gilbert isn't quite certain who makes for it first, but they're kissing then, rather more urgently than usual. It steals his breath, stings a little. He thinks he might like it.

As quickly as it starts, though, Hanneman draws back, shifting up the bed, letting his knees fall open. Glancing up one last time for permission, Gilbert moves as well, but with only a sliver of the grace. Of course, there's no disapproval from Hanneman, whose smile is even more devastating when it's viewed like this, knelt between his lean thighs.

The converse must be true, or Hanneman must think it is; he reaches down to pet the stiff curve of Gilbert's neck, calls him _beautiful, lovely, just radiant._

Hanneman must be able to feel the force of Gilbert's swallow, his tremoring, because he lays his fingers beneath Gilbert's chin, murmurs "you can touch."

He does, then, his too-broad hands lighting carefully on Hanneman's ribs. They gentle over his waist, down his chest, and by now Gilbert has seen his love spend full hours in the bath, has realized that that's how he makes his skin so soft, so unmarred and delicate. For a veteran, he has scarcely any scars, and even the silver hair on his chest, down his abdomen is fine, well-kept. No matter how thoroughly it’s explained, it stuns him every time.

 _"Lovely,"_ Gilbert whispers, and even though it's one of Hanneman's words, his love doesn't seem to object to his use of it.

It's the only word he's got, just now, though he wishes there were more. Wishes he could dash off some litany, could ensure that Hanneman knew always how reverent he was, how awed.

Perhaps if he touches him gently enough, the intent will go through all the same. So. He lifts his palm, barely making contact, and lets his hands hover around Hanneman's sharp hips. Runs fingertips around the waistband of his trousers, the way one might the rim of a wineglass, to make it sing.

It is and isn't stalling. Surely, the further he goes, the more he presses on into what is still terra incognita, the more chance he's got of botching it.

But — Hanneman really does wear clothes well, and they're always so fine, so delicately fitted and coordinated. Gilbert studies the way the fabric lies over the fine-cut crests of his hips, dips fingers into the gaps beside them. The skin there is even softer, thinner, paler, and they both reel at the way it feels against Gilbert's callused hands.

Gilbert's never certain where impulses like these come from, but suddenly there's nothing for him but to kiss that spot, trace deep, defined Adonis lines.

By the time the plan's come together, Hanneman's already unfastening his pants. It ruffles him, as if there's something wrong with it, and only after a moment does he realize it's because tonight, as far as he's allowed, he's honor-bound to make sure his darling never lifts a single slim finger.

"A-allow me. Please."

Hanneman nods to him, eyes half-lidded and glittering, and it's a wonder that Gilbert can even tangentially recall what he's meant to be doing.

He gets on with it, though, fumbling with fasteners, curling his fingers around the fitted waistband, careful not to drag Hanneman's lace-edged unmentionables down as well. But Hanneman just sighs gracefully, tells him in sweet and certain terms that he's welcome to relieve him of those as well.

As prodigiously as Hanneman wears his clothes, he's almost more self-possessed like this. No hesitation, no drawing in on oneself the way Gilbert always does, convinced he's nothing one would want to see. No, Hanneman just drapes himself back over the pillows, smiles in the irrefutable knowledge that he could have been carved from marble, that Gilbert is completely thunderstruck, that his breath catches on every inhale.

Gilbert feels, again, as though there ought to be something to say. There isn't, unless one counts the shattered little _may I?_ that cracks between clenched teeth.

Hanneman changes his mind, then, about reclining luxuriantly — he curls in on himself, kisses the space where Gilbert's brows knit.

"Aren't you a sight?" he asks, and Gilbert almost laughs — that he'd say something like that, knowing what he himself must look like. "So sweet for me, goodness, darling, I've never felt more like a prince. Are you anxious?"

Gilbert nods, slow and silent, barely even breathing.

He's met with a little shake of the head, with Hanneman's light fingers trailing down his sleeve, twining with his own. Hanneman squeezes, steady and firm like a heartbeat, and Gilbert can't keep back a little sound.

"My dearest, you know you needn't be. You treat me so gently, so kindly. Whatever you like, lovely, I am at your beck and call." These last few words he punctuates with kisses to Gilbert's cheekbones, his jaw, the ridge of his brow. He dips, on the last one, to lay soft lips over his Adam's apple, and Gilbert shivers, clamping down on that hand.

He asks Hanneman, once more, if he's certain.

"Yes, love, even if you'd just like to go to bed."

He couldn't even think of it. Hanneman is — certain, and sparking with love like a hearth, and so, so precious _patient._ There isn't any denying him, isn't any denying himself.

"N-no, I want — !" and he quavers with the vivacity, the immediacy of it.

Gilbert dips his head, finally gives himself leave to kiss that spot, that little divot on the inward edge of Hanneman's hip. His beloved gasps with it — it must be a sensitive place, so he lingers there a second, even though he's not quite certain what to do beyond graze chapped lips against it, gentle it with his breath.

"Darling," Hanneman calls him, just because he can. Just because he knows the way Gilbert whines for it, the way it dizzies him, like standing up too fast.

"Yes?" It comes out on an uneven breath, and Gilbert goes so still that his pulse is just perceptible where it flickers at Hanneman's thigh.

But he's met only with a fond shake of the head — "it's nothing, Gilbert, I simply enjoy the sound of my own voice." 

Gilbert sighs a laugh, nuzzles at the apex of his hip and then downward, half-whispering words that are not quite enough. They aren't his, and he still finds them so difficult to voice, hanging like burrs in his throat, but.

He means them, and he means to wait, to stay here steadfast until he's thawed enough to say them.

For the time being, though, he can do this — checking once more for permission, warming through at Hanneman's little nod.

His fingers shake when he takes Hanneman in hand, but it's. It's acceptable. It's not half so bad as the first time, and Hanneman — he makes this _sound,_ almost identical to the noise he makes when he's nestling into bed on a chill night, when he's finally gotten comfortable with his sore knees bent just so, his head on Gilbert's breast. Subconscious, soft, laden down with satisfaction.

It's always a little strange to him, no matter how many times they've lain together, that he can do this to Hanneman. 

He leans in, careful, and watches the way Hanneman squints as he takes him in his mouth.

It isn't so bewildering as it was the first time, though Hanneman assures him that most everyone finds the act takes a little getting used to. He's been taught well, anyway, and received _ample_ demonstration, and it's not difficult to remember. He remembers thinking it'd be some kind of calculus, the type of arcane equation scribbled on tea-stained parchment on Hanneman's desk.

Hanneman had kissed him when he'd said as much, told him not to worry a whit.

"Mind your teeth," he'd said, "that's all."

Gilbert minds his teeth. Hanneman tangles their fingers tighter, slips his other hand against the silk of Gilbert's hair.

"There you are, there's a love," he croons, and Gilbert feels it just the same as the mattress under his knees, the weight on his tongue.

Again, he wants to say something — he isn't sure what. But it'd be unthinkable now, once he's marshaled himself to this point, providing for Hanneman as best he possibly can.

He braces his free hand on Hanneman's flank, in the concave space behind his hipbone, and the sleek softness of his skin nearly halts him. He huffs, swallows, and he didn't even think — but oh, how sweetly Hanneman jolts, cries out for it. Fingers curl at the nape of his neck, half-scrabbling.

"M-my _dear boy,"_ Hanneman rasps, and this is — Gilbert has _made_ him this way, coaxed this out from behind that gleaming lecture-hall patter, that ever-present eloquence.

He thrums with it, has to part his lips around a sigh. Hangs there for a moment, gathering himself. Hanneman strokes over his jaw, the hollow of his cheek. Just gentle, the graze of sharp knuckles. "Good," he whispers, "perfect."

It isn't perfect yet. He sighs, redoubles his efforts, leans in until his forehead rests against the lean muscle of Hanneman's abdomen — he can feel them tensing, twitching, and it does something to him that there aren't quite words for.

He's never been certain why this goes so far in quieting his mind. Why this is what muffles everything out, like the way sound bends underwater. This, after all, should be unmapped land — making love with no manifest purpose, none of the splintering home diplomacy he's never understood. And it had been.

For months — he couldn't even think of it, now, like this. Couldn't properly remember all that flinching, apologizing, sniveling.

Just the soft coverlet of Hanneman's voice, the way it tucked around his shoulders, blotted the sweat from his brow. _Lovely,_ he'd always called him, irrespective of whether he'd bared himself entire or just flashed a sliver of wrist, scarred collarbone. _Darling,_ and _perfect,_ which he still couldn't quite believe, and always, always _enough._ Always _good._

He says it now, strained and staggered, presses it into the back of Gilbert's neck with steepled fingertips, twitches it with his hips, his thighs shaking at Gilbert's shoulders.

"Dearheart," he whimpers, and it's _gorgeous,_ and Gilbert wracks with wishing he could say it back, had the words and the space and the bravery to echo it, magnify it, because Hanneman is the most — 

The most — he isn't sure what, just knows that he could stay here, knelt before him like the day he was knighted, could protect him, care for him with everything that's left to him.

It sends him quivering, and Hanneman must feel it, because his warm palm squeezes Gilbert's fingers tighter, bracing and reassuring at once, and he cries out pitchy, mumbles "yes, that's it, darling, there you are —" and he's shaking, shaking, and it's all Gilbert can do to let him, hold him steady.

He isn't certain when he'd gotten used to the taste — the first time, he'd recoiled with it, and Hanneman had kissed his cheek, held a strong sweet teacup to his lips. But that'd been moons ago, and now and again he'd catch himself thinking of it idly, layering it over with the way Hanneman would tremble, his open-throated whines. So there's no further ado — he can simply lapse to the side, let himself fall heavy along the line of Hanneman's body, fold an arm over his slender chest.

Hanneman's heart clamors away in there like cavalry, and Gilbert gathers him close. Holds him tenderly until his breath steadies, until their pulses slip back into sync, until Hanneman dips out gracefully, plucking up a handkerchief to dab at Gilbert's slick lips, to croon in his ear.

"An inspired performance," he says, and Gilbert has never figured out how he manages to stay so lively, so _coquettish_ even after — after something like _that,_ but the mystery of it only makes it more endearing. _"Bravo,_ my heart."

Gilbert breathes a laugh, nuzzles into the safe slope of Hanneman's shoulder.

"I — " he mumbles, but just as quickly gives it up, instead savoring the soft herbal smell of him, the warmth.

"Is there anything wrong, dear? I thought you looked as if you enjoyed that."

He can only nod, can only muffle a weak cry in his roughened throat, can only think that someday, he shall have to work out a way to say so. To say _yes,_ and _thank you,_ and _beloved,_ and — 

_"Please, please always let me stay."_

**Author's Note:**

> that's right! with enough mental gymnastics you too can believe that sucking cock is an expression of chivalry! sex pro tips from gilbert.
> 
> thank you so much for reading this--if you've gotten this far i very much salute you. please let me know what you thought, and come talk Old Mans with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) if you like! i do not bite and have had all my shots.
> 
> title is from mumford and sons' 'sigh no more,' which is a gilman jam to rival all others. i double-checked the lyrics after i'd already picked it out and it turns out that they are actually slightly different, but the way they are now suits my purposes better, and what is fanfiction without death of the author.


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